Blurb:

A Foothills Pride Story

When his lover Jason’s drug addiction spiraled out of control, TV celebrity chef and cookbook author Adam de Leon walked away from him. Adam also abandoned his renowned restaurant in San Francisco to start a small bistro in the Sierra Foothills.

Five years later Adam is battling the conservative leaders of Stone Acres, California, to open a new restaurant in historic Old Town when Jason turns up on his doorstep—a recovered Jason, now going by the name David and claiming he’s overcome his addictions. What’s more, he begs Adam to take him back and says he’s ready for their happily ever after.

Adam has enough on his plate with problems plaguing the opening of his restaurant. And now he’s having a hard time deciding which to follow—his head or his heart.

My View:

If you have not been following the adventures of the Foothill Pride boys up to this point, you can easily pick up the latest installment, When Adam Fell, without reading the first three books. However, I recommend them.

The predominant theme in the Foothill Pride series from Pat Henshaw is homophobia. You have a conservative California town who doesn’t want the “San Francisco Gays” moving in and opening businesses in town. Well to be fair, it is a vocal, and violent, minority. While we once again encounter this poisonous group, more of the story is focused on Adam and Jason/David’s second chance at love.

We have seen cameo’s of Adam throughout the series. We know he is a famous chef who just wants to cook good food for his friends and neighbors. He is mostly a hermit up on the mountain. However, for his and Jason/David’s story, we get to take him off the mountain and see him interact with the friends we have made in the earlier installments.

We don’t get a ton of background on either main character, but we get enough to know that Adam walked out on a spiraling Jason after being high school sweethearts and best friends for years. We know enough to know that Jason’s drug problem was the reason for the split. We know enough to know that Adam thinks Jason is dead because he left him to kill himself with drugs. We know how Jason became David. What we don’t know is why Jason did the drugs. We don’t know how Adam and Jason got from Jason fearing Adam to Jason and Adam being soulmates.

The main conflict is Adam versus Adam’s guilt. Yes, they have to stand up for themselves to town “officials” who don’t want them to open the restaurant. However, that conflict is relatively tame compared to some of the ones encountered thus far in the series. Mostly we have to watch Adam decide if he can chance his heart with David. They go from no to yes fairly quickly. Not quite whiplash-quick, but I do remember asking myself why they were having sex when they first fell into bed together. At that point, I felt Adam was still on the fence. But once they were together, they presented a united front and never looked back.

Another sweet and thought-provoking addition to the Foothills Pride series.

Links

I would like to thank the publisher for providing me with the eARC of this title in exchange for my honest opinion.

Farewell Giveaway
I have a number of paperbacks, most of which are signed, to giveaway. Over the between now (11 Mar 2017) and 31 Mar 2017, every comment on the blog (this post and all other new posts), will be entered to win 1 of these paperbacks. There are also some misc swag items, so there will be a few packs of these to give away as well.

Thank you so much for your support over the last 4 years. Prism will be closing its doors on 1 April 2017. All content will remain available, but no new content will appear after 31 Mar 2017. As such all request forms have been turned off. Again Thank you,